The Politics of Nature: Sustaining the British Environment 1600 to the Present (HIC3307)

Staff

Dr Tim Cooper - Convenor

Credit Value

30

ECTS Value

15.00

NQF Level

6

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Duration of Module

Term 2: 11 weeks;

Module aims

This module investigates the history and politics of ideas of ‘nature’ as they have developed in Britain between the late eighteenth-century down to the present day. The module encourages students to engage critically with the emergence of the themes of environment and sustainability, and the ideological implication of such terms in particular. We look at a range of themes, especially the role of ‘nature’ as a concept in political economy; the impact of environmental transformation on urban and global environments; and the emergence of environmental politics from the late-nineteenth century. The aim is to encourage students to develop historical interests in contemporary issues and to prepare to engage in environmental questions as active citizens in a democratic society

ILO: Module-specific skills

1. demonstrate significant knowledge and critical engagement with a range of historical issues around the themes of environment and sustainability.

2. demonstrate an ability to deploy effectively a range of the tools of ideology critique and discourse analysis in analysis of historical ideas about nature.

3. Demonstrate effectively the connections between material environmental transformations and ideologies across a range of themes and contexts

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

4. deploy effectively the concepts of ideology and discourse analysis in the critical analysis of historical sources

5. analyse a full range of original sources effectively and assess their utility as historical evidence

ILO: Personal and key skills

8. digest, select and synthesize evidence and arguments to produce, to a deadline, a coherent, critical and cogent argument

9. be able to articulate the relationship between historical knowledge and contemporary political and social issues related to environmental change

10. be able to effectively articulate your own critical viewpoints

Syllabus plan

Themes to be addressed in this module may include: Ideology; Discourse Analysis; Political Economy and the Idea of Nature; Pollution and Control; Urban Change and The Environment; The Idea of Conservation; Waste; Imperialism and Environmental Transformation; The Origins of Modern Environmentalism